Affirming Black Sociality in a time of anti-CRT Legislation, White Emotionality, & Immunitary Whiteness.

This article uses white emotionality to critically conceptualize recent legislative efforts to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT). This undertaking is theoretically motivated by immunitary whiteness and is methodologically informed by Black whiteness studies, particularly the importance of W. E. B Du Bois' reflections on education. These reflections form the basis for biopolitical interrogations of how the current moment negates but might otherwise affirm educational life. The former is analyzed both historically by the Kanawha County textbook controversy of 1974 and presently through Florida's 2021 change to the state's Required Instruction Planning and Reporting statute. Toward the latter, this article posits Black sociality as way of affirming educational life against presenthistorical negations embodied by the current wave of anti-CRT legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]